FAITH · ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas
Faith
Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas, near present-day Tumacácori in southern Arizona, preserves the layered history of a Spanish mission community on the Santa Cruz valley frontier. Its origins trace to Eusebio Kino’s 1691 San Cayetano mission at Tumacácori, destroyed in the 1751 O'odham rebellion, and to the mission re-established in 1756 by Francisco Xavier Pauer and moved later that year to Calabazas. Repeated raids, especially in 1777 and 1830, disrupted and burned the settlement, and Apache hostility eventually drove away its O'odham residents. The site later served as an estancia, ranch, customs house, and military post before becoming a preserved ruin recognized for its record of mission life, conflict, ranching, and frontier military occupation.
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